TJ Walker says nervousness before big interviews isn't fixed by beta blockers or meditation. Instead, practice simulated interviews on video until you love how you sound and what you say. Watching playback shows you weak answers and builds real confidence.
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What do you do if you're nervous before a big interview, perhaps the biggest interview of your life, and you are scared? You're worried your hands might shake or that your voice might quake or crack? What do you do? I do not recommend that you take beta blockers, although I've had clients do that. Horrible advice. Meditation, visualization, drinking green tea. None of those really get to the root of the problem. You're nervous because you're not sure that you're going to look your best, sound your best, have a good message, and speak in sound bites. The number one way to get over that nervousness and to have confidence, that's an actual legitimate confidence, a confidence based in reality, is to do simulated interviews on video. Now, here's the part that's going to confuse you and sounds counterintuitive. Even if you're doing a telephone interview with a print media outlet like in New York Times, you're better off practicing the interview on video. Not that the video is going to be seen if it's a tech story, but by practicing on video when you're watching yourself, you get a much better sense of what answers work and are great and are ideal. You. You also get a much better sense of what answers are going to be awful if you use them in real life. So if I'm practicing an interview and the New York Times is interviewing me in real life and I have someone practice with me, and as I'm playing back the video and I can see myself saying, I understand that most people think media trainers are just spin artists who teach people to lie. It might have felt okay as I said it, but if I'm watching the video, I can stop the tape and say, wow, I'm going to look like an idiot if I say that in real life, and I'm quoted saying that, it's therefore going to be easier not to say it when the actual interview takes place. So keep practicing. There's no magic number other than this. Keep practicing on video until you love every aspect of your style and your substance. Keep practicing. Get to that point. Then it will be virtually impossible to be nervous during the interview.
